Interactive timeline: The Bettencourt scandal

This interactive timeline tracks the donations scandal that surrounded Liliane Bettencourt, France’s wealthiest woman and L’Oréal heiress, and provides a potted history of the cosmetic giant.

What began as a family dispute, with Ms Bettencourt’s only child Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers seeking to have her mother made a ward of court, spiralled into a political scandal engulfing some of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s key ministers and allegations of illicit political donations.